Saturday, March 25, 2017

By Anita Kline, WFP delegate to Colombia in December 2016“Tell
me about your trip to Colombia!” The leaders of our Witness for Peace
delegation had prepared me for this moment. I understood that uncovering connections
across international borders is a critical aspect of the work of WFP. But only
after coming home, did I understand that this task has taken on new urgency
since the curtain went up on the xenophobic and militaristic tragic opera currently
playing in Washington. And only after witnessing the resurgence of progressive
political action in the U.S. did I see that, paradoxically, the barrage of
cruelty we face from Donald Trump and his cast of supporting characters presents
an opportunity to do this work in a new and promising context.

Photo credit: Mónica Hurtado, Marianna Tzabiras, and Anita Kline. Slideshow video compiled by Lisa Taylor. Music credit to community of Caño Manso in Urabá for their song, "El Vendaval."

Our fellow citizens are
waking up.
They’re getting involved in civic life, marching in the streets, running for
office on progressive platforms. They’re coalescing into a movement of
movements through which newly politicized citizens are learning through their
own experience about exploitation and resistance. Activists working to promote
peace and justice internationally have an opportunity to expand and deepen this
education. As millions suddenly see what’s happening in Washington, they can
also broaden their perspective to connect the dots between Washington and the
rest of the world, including Latin America. I
signed up to go to Colombia with Witness for Peace early in 2016, months before
the election of Donald Trump and the more or less simultaneous signing of Peace
Accords with the FARC in Colombia. A year later, the Trump administration is
well on the way to undoing democratic institutions and protections won over
decades of mass struggle in the U.S. and around the world. In Colombia, first steps are being taken toward implementing the terms
of the Peace Accords, while reactionary violence—directed especially at human
rights workers, Afro-Colombians and indigenous and women activists—continues
unabated, threatening to turn the possibility of peace into a genocide.

During
our delegation’s 10 days (Dec. 1-10, 2016) in Medellin, Urabá, and Bogotá, we
were privileged to listen to many stories—of people standing up for human
rights, of women striving for peace, of campesinos fighting for land rights. These
stories of repression and resistance in Colombia are reflected in our own
stories here at home and can serve to inspire and strengthen our movement. Here
are a few examples, witnessed by our delegation “Women-Led and
Survivor-Centered Movements for Healing, Peace and Justice.”

Photo credit: Anita Kline

1.
The Peace Accords between the
Colombian government and the FARC are a big step forward. But as has already
been shown by the increased killings of human rights workers, it is only the
beginning of real peace with justice. As Amnesty International recently reported: “In large swathes of
Colombia, the armed conflict is far from over. Unless the authorities offer
urgent protection to these communities, many lives could be lost.”

In
formal and informal encounters with WFP’s Colombian partners, we learned that international
support is crucial during this implementation process. Special attention must
be paid to monitoring the provisions under which the most vulnerable—indigenous
and Afro-Colombian communities, women and LGBT people—are guaranteed protection
and equal treatment under the law. Under Obama, the U.S. Congress reached bi-partisan
agreement to support the peace plan. The Trump administration’s stated intentions, however, are to “review
the details. . .and determine the extent to which the United States should
continue to support [the Accord].”

Trump
has already shown a clear preference for military “solutions” while putting
diplomacy and respect for human rights on the back burner of U.S. foreign
policy. These are ominous signs that “Making America Great Again” could mean
going back to the days of U.S.-backed dictatorships in Latin America, when WFP
delegations were first organized to bear witness to violent attacks of
right-wing governments against their own people.

The
eyes of the world are focused on presidents Trump and Santos and Colombia’s historic
opportunity to make peace in a world embroiled in wars. Our resistance here must include demands that the U.S. government
continue to back the Peace Accords in word and deed—providing promised monetary
aid for implementation of the agreement and opposing any plans to increase support
for the military.

2.
Land restitution is at the heart of
the struggle for justice in Colombia where 52% of farms are in the hands of just 1.15% of landowners. This is, according to
Oxfam, the most unequal land distribution in all Latin America and one of the
most unequal in the world.

Our
delegation traveled to the remote area of Urabá in the provinces of Antioquia and
Chocó, a hot, humid, rainy region of plantain growing and cattle ranching. We
met with people living in four Humanitarian and Biodiversity Zones, where Afro-Colombians,
indigenous people, and mestizos work their land in common and live in legally-sanctioned
safe communities, no arms allowed.

Photo credit: Anita Kline

From
these generous and welcoming people, we heard moving stories, all variations on
the theme of displacement, a country-wide phenomenon that has resulted in
Colombia having one of the largest displaced populations in the world. Afro-Colombian communities and indigenous
people account for 10% and 3% respectively of the 7.4 million internally displaced persons in Colombia. These communities have fought for and won legal
recognition as special victims of “el conflicto,”
as the 50+ years of war is known. Yet, despite various law guaranteeing their
safety and land rights, and despite the new peace agreement, people in the countryside continue to face
violence, threats, and abuse of judicial power from landowner “elites,” including
those tied to U.S. corporations such as Chiquita Banana. Indeed, their very
survival is threatened.

At
first glance, the struggle for land in a developing largely agrarian country
like Colombia may seem remote from struggles in the highly industrialized United
States. But here too, we see a growing
awareness of land-use issues, food and water safety, and treaty rights. We too
are fighting against desecration of the land by agribusiness and extractive
industries and for the rights of workers in these industries. As part of the global movement for climate
justice, we too are fighting to uphold treaties, and for equitable and sustainable
practices, as shown most notably by the gathering of thousands at Standing Rock
to protect water and native treaty rights against threats of the fossil fuel
industry.

As
educators and activists, we can make these connections explicit. We can demand
that U.S. foreign aid to Colombia continue and that it be made contingent on
the implementation of the rights of the poor and displaced in rural areas. We
can point to our resistance as part of the world-wide struggle against those who
care nothing for the earth except as a source of profit. We can
link our own demands for a peaceful world to the demands for a peaceful
Colombia.

3.
As in the U.S. and around the world, Colombian
women are playing a leading role in the struggle for peace and against all
forms of violence. Our delegation met with amazing women from two national
organizations—La Red Feminista Antimilitarista (The Feminist Antimilitarist Network)
and La Ruta Pacífica (Women’s Peace Route)—and with Pilar Rueda, who brought
her expertise in the culture of sexual violence to educate delegates at the
peace talks in Cuba. We also heard from women leaders in the countryside whose
very lives illustrate the special role of women in transforming a society
deeply scarred by war and a culture of unacknowledged violence against women
and children. Because of their inspiring work, Colombian women were given a
seat at peace negotiations in Cuba—alongside others representing special
victims of the conflict—and their demands are reflected in the Accords.

Photo credit: Anita Kline

In the U.S. too, women’s
voices are growing ever stronger in the face of Trump and his misogynist,
homophobic, racist agenda. Notable examples can be seen in the Black Lives Matter
movement, the post-inauguration Women’s March on Washington, and the continuing
community mobilizations against deportations and other state-sanctioned police
attacks on people of color in communities from coast to coast. The Witness for
Peace-sponsored speakers’ tours of Colombian women leaders in 2016 and 2017 are important opportunities to learn from each
other, especially since our Colombian sisters have been fighting in the context
of extreme violence and with the kind of long-term persistence and courage we
are likely to need here going forward.

4.
Finally, as elsewhere in the world, Colombians
are not only saying “No” to violence, war and injustice. They are also saying “Yes”
to new ways of living together in
prosperous and peaceful community. Remarkably,
Colombian law itself promotes the active participation of victims in the
process of implementing the Peace Accords and building a more just society.
Moreover, it recognizes that the people’s participation will inevitably build a
stronger sense of power and confidence.

Along
with community organizers, educators, and human rights workers, cultural
workers play an important role in building these new relationships among the Colombian
people. Everywhere we went, whether in the city or countryside, artists and
artisans are telling stories in marvelous murals, posters, and art
installations. Traditions are woven into
cloth. Love is graffitied onto city walls. Representatives of Caño Manso,
an Urabá community, proudly told us about their displacement and their ensuing
resistance to land-owning elites and cattle ranchers. They amplified and spread their story when it
became the lyrics to a ballad “El Vendaval” and recorded on a CD “Voces de Paz”.

On
a visit to Medellin’s wonderful museum, Casa
de la Memoria, I asked a university student about “la historia del conflicto.” He patiently corrected me, explaining that the
museum was not about history but about memory. “History," he said, “is the work of historians, academics. Our exhibits
are based on how the people themselves, the victims with their different
perspectives, experienced the years of violence and war.” Indeed the Casa’s carefully constructed exhibits
ingeniously reveal the years of conflict in the victims’ own words and from
their own experience. And perhaps most importantly for Colombia’s healing,
revealed each person’s vision of a life of peace.

Photo credit: Anita Kline

In the U.S. as well,
people are working with renewed hope not only to make change, but to “be the change” as well. We embody peace
as we work against war. We fly colorful banners demanding “Keep it in the
Ground!” as we dance to protect the water and the earth. We are resurrecting
the sanctuary movement as immigrants and asylum seekers are threatened by
massive deportations. We strive, in the face of lies and bullying, to tell the
truth in language that’s kind as well as strong.

We
can look to Colombia for inspiration in this community-building work as well,
envisioning ourselves as connected to our Colombian friends and people
everywhere. Thanks to those who witness across borders, thanks to organizations
like Witness for Peace, we can more easily imagine all of us as nodes in an
interdependent web where we meet and work together for a better world.

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This is your online resource for news, analysis, and action on U.S. foreign policy and corporate practice. You will also find stories of struggle and hope from our partners throughout Latin America.

Witness for Peace is a politically independent grassroots organization committed to nonviolence and led by faith and conscience. Witness for Peace's mission is to support peace, justice, and sustainable economies by changing the policies and practices which contribute to poverty and oppression in Latin America and the Caribbean.